Dangerously cold temperatures hit Prairies, windchills reaching minus 50

Sat Dec 12, 9:42 PM


By The Canadian Press

EDMONTON - Dangerously cold temperatures have settled in across much of the Prairies and northern Ontario this weekend.
Environment Canada has issued warnings, saying the windchill could reach -50C.
At those temperatures, exposed skin can freeze in less than five minutes.
In both Edmonton and Calgary, police and paramedics were moving out to help get the homeless into shelters.

So far the news is good at Edmonton's Hope Mission, a Christian social agency that provides the bulk of shelter space with five facilities and 700 beds.

Communications director Peter Gerber says while they were fuller than usual on Friday night, there were still beds left.

If shelters start to overflow, the organization also has a warehouse with washroom facilities on hand, where clients would be provided with mats and blankets.

The official count of people living on the city streets was 3,000 in October 2008, but Gerber believes the real number could be 20 per cent higher.

The increased demand, combined with a forecast predicting the cold will stay in the coming days, means it's possible the makeshift facility will come into use.

Const. Brad Rutherford said police were hoping people would call 911 or the police complaint line when they spot homeless and intoxicated people struggling against the elements.

"This is the first week of the cold snap and this is going to continue for a few days so I expect there's going to be some problems," he said.

"We can come by and check on their status and get them to a safe place."

In Calgary, Philip Gray with the Drop-In Centre said the number of homeless people in need of shelter has doubled, and donations haven't been keeping up.

"We're seeing a lot of pneumonia. Of course we're seeing a lot of flu symptoms coming in, especially since it is the flu season. We're seeing a lot of bronchitis, a lot of clients with colds and such. No frostbite yet, but we've been really good about letting a lot of people in."

In Saskatchewan, SaskEnergy reported a major jump in natural gas consumption due to the frigid temperatures.

However, company officials were ready and were employing underground caverns to meet the demand.

"Those caverns come in really handy at times like this,"said Dave Burdeniuk. "On a day like today, 70 per cent of the gas being used in Saskatchewan comes from underground caverns. If we didn't have these caverns, we'd have to spend billions building massive pipelines from producing areas in the west or southeast."

The cold temperatures are expected to last through Sunday.